You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was planning an appearance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s used to physical challenges. Frequently they align with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
